This is no time for partisan rage

2 hours ago 2

Opinion

December 26, 2025 — 2.10pm

Earlier this month, when contemplating what to write for a year-end column, I wanted to depart from the journalistic tradition of casting an eye over the past 12 months in an attempt to dissect the pivotal moments and underlying themes. The plan, instead, was to write a first draft of non-history: the things that did not happen in 2025.

We are not in the midst of a global recession, or worse still, a depression. That was the fear after Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff shock when markets plummeted before eventually rebounding in one of the strongest six-month rallies of the past 75 years. Nor have we yet seen a full-blown constitutional crisis, despite Trump’s flagrant disregard for the lower federal courts and trashing of presidential norms – for which the demolition of the East Wing of the White House became instantly metaphoric.

A man mourns during a menorah lighting ceremony on December 16 at the floral memorial for victims of the Bondi Beach attack.

Here at home, the federal election did not, as was widely predicted, follow the anti-incumbency trend set in 2024 when so many sitting governments were turfed out by voters. We do not have a hung parliament. Labor won easily, albeit in a loveless landslide. Peter Dutton is no longer the member for Dickson, let alone enjoying his first Christmas at Kirribilli House.

AUKUS was not torpedoed. Instead, the US commander-in-chief ordered “full steam ahead”. Here, something else which did not happen for the first eight months of the Trump presidency, a face-to-face White House meeting, worked to Anthony Albanese’s advantage. China, by announcing export restrictions on rare earth minerals, created a problem for the United States, which the Australians came shovel-ready to solve. Like the delay to the election caused by Cyclone Alfred – a non-cyclone, as it turned out, which acted as a circuit-breaker for a beleaguered government – it embellished the narrative that Albanese is an unusually lucky prime minister. That trope, I suspect, will never appear in print again.

Now, after the horror of Bondi, when two gunmen opened fire, killing 15 people, a column about what did not happen takes on a wholly different connotation. Indeed, the things that did not happen will form the basis of the review into federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies conducted by Dennis Richardson, the security chief in the aftermath of September 11, when ASIO and the AFP established a much-envied reputation internationally for preventing Islamist mass casualty attacks. Why were clues, such as the trip Sajid and Naveed Akram made to the Philippines, missed? Why did dots go unconnected, such as Sajid Akram’s arsenal of long-arm weapons and his son’s alleged links with ISIS?

In the fortnight since Bondi, something else which has not happened is the recall of federal parliament. A reeling government fears Parliament House could become an ugly battlefield, where it would come under further assault. More specifically, there is the question of how a condolence motion would be dealt with in the Senate – a chamber where Pauline Hanson recently appeared wearing a burqa – which is often more toxic and prone to stunts than the House. The parliamentary tradition is for bound copies of condolence motions, and extracts from the Hansard proceedings, to be presented to relatives of those being honoured. But in this instance, would Hansard have to be redacted to expunge vituperative rhetoric? Politics has reached a nadir when recalling parliament is seen as an action best avoided.

Even before the Bondi attack, inter- and intra-party politics had intersected to create an ugly multiplier effect. During the parliamentary expenses scandal, Albanese, who had been noticeably more fluent after his wedding and successful trip to Washington, was in a defensive crouch. Sussan Ley had survived the final parliamentary sitting week of the year but expected a leadership challenge in 2026. Pauline Hanson, surging in the polls and boosted by the defection of a former deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, from the Nationals, had been emboldened. Rather than tailing off, the political year was still ramping up.

After Bondi, everything almost immediately became politicised – funeral non-attendance, gun laws, whether to call a federal royal commission. In this fissile climate, the call from the Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong to lower the temperature evidently sounded incendiary to opposition ears. “I haven’t seen Penny Wong shed a single tear,” yelled Ley, as she thumped the podium.

On the morning after the massacre, I happened to be standing alongside the Liberal leader at Bondi Pavilion as she first started to hear from those affected. Arms rigid, hands clasped tight together, face almost blank, she, like all of us, seemed shell-shocked. Now, in voicing her fury so volubly, she may have strengthened her hold on the party – conservative politics has become so untethered recently, it is hard to tell – but has such a personalised attack undercut her claim for national leadership?

Something she said on television the next day is also worthy of note. After speaking to the prime minister on the night of the attack, she had not had a conversation with him thereafter. It’s another marker of broken bipartisanship, and how the political dialogue is being conducted in front of a thicket of microphones. In the past 25 years, I cannot recall an angrier fortnight in Australian politics. Likewise, in a quarter-century of covering terrorist strikes in North America, Europe and South Asia, I’ve not seen a more vilifying political response.

Here, there are contrasts to be drawn with the bipartisanship in America immediately after 9/11 in 2001, before the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq had such a polarising effect. As dusk faded into night that awful day, Republican and Democratic lawmakers assembled on the steps of Capitol Hill to sing God Bless America. George W. Bush, after addressing a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2021, was hugged by the then Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, another gesture of patriotic unity.

The attacks are not strictly analogous. Al-Qaeda targeted an entire country rather than a specific community. Nonetheless, the cessation of political hostilities in a city that by the turn of the century was already becoming a cesspit of hyper-partisanship was impressive. John Howard, who on 9/11 watched smoke rise over the Pentagon, experienced it firsthand.

To watch Anthony Albanese is to be reminded of George W. Bush’s response to the destruction of the Twin Towers. The then-US president struggled to find apposite words. Often, he appeared ashen-faced and overwhelmed by the immensity of the crisis. Because of his halting, almost syncopated delivery, questions were raised about his communication skills. Only when he stood atop the rubble of Ground Zero, bullhorn in hand, did Bush finally find his voice.

By contrast, when Albanese returned to Bondi last Sunday for the Day of Reflection vigil, he was heckled by some in the crowd and not invited to utter a single word. For him, it must have felt like a day of retribution. Rather than wrapping his arms around community members – something he has done privately with victims’ families – he had to be enwrapped by his security detail. Because of his enforced absence from the stage, Governor-General Sam Mostyn – whose carefully weighed words and gestures have widely been judged to have met the moment – spoke on behalf of the nation.

Watching a prime minister struggle to take command raises a broader question: whether the office itself has been weakened and degraded by the here-today-gone-tomorrow turmoil of the past 20 years. Over that period, there have been eight different prime ministerships, compared with just three between 1985 and 2005. During the COVID crisis, Scott Morrison was outshone by popular state premiers, such as Mark McGowan in Western Australia and Gladys Berejiklian in NSW. So much so that when The Australian Financial Review published its 2021 power index, state premiers usurped the prime minister. In this moment, too, NSW Premier Chris Minns, who was cheered at the Bondi vigil, has been lionised. For the right-wing press, praising Minns has become a means of denigrating Albanese.

Unfortunately, politics has entered the shouting phase when it still pays to be listening.

Hopefully, the holiday season will be defusing. A partisan ceasefire would be welcome. Noticeable, though, is how January, traditionally a rest period, has recently become a political fighting season, with each party determined to strike early to set the tone for the year ahead. Then come the culture war tensions of Australia Day.

That beachside vigil at Bondi culminated with the singing of “I am, you are, we are Australians”. Alas, this week will be remembered more for a cacophony of partisan rage.

Nick Bryant, a regular columnist, is a former BBC correspondent and author of The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a Great Nation Lost its Way.